This is a great price from Tokyo!
Watching this always makes me want to go somewhere. As long as it's on ANA!
Or in English, a China Eastern Airbus A340-600 taken from one of the best planespotting spots at LAX; the Hertz Rent-a-Car lot!
Whooooosh! Coming in for a landing...
Not to be outdone by ANA's Pokemon jet, UA now issues their 747s window shades so the dashboards wont be dried out by the sun when the plane is parked.
Do you suppose the headrests have doilies and there's a keychain alarm?
This was the plane that flew me back to SFO from HKG. My SWU finally cleared when I landed HKG from SIN. Too much excitement for an upgrade...
Speaking of excitement, there was a passenger who decided to give the HKG based crew grief BEFORE TAKEOFF. Apparently he did not approve of the contents of the kosher meal he special ordered. AFAIK, on UA, you get to order the type of special meal, not the contents. This ain't SQ and you can't Book the Cook with any other airline but. Anyway, he kept name dropping "Global Services" every 15 seconds and threatened to get off the plane (which he should have done). The captain had to come out of the cockpit to read the riot act to this bozo, who because of his shenagans, prevented the cabin crew from locking down the plane for takeoff. The bozo (which shall be his name now) tried the "Global Services" namedrop but the captain simply said, "I don't know and I don't care about what Global Services is, my job is to fly this plane which is now late for take off. Do you want to get off the plane?"
After seeing that namedropping Global Services meant nothing to the captain, bozo shut up and takeoff resumed. Apparently, bozo lived in San Francisco. He was full of smug and was heading home (how appropriate!). I found it interesting he gave far less grief to the non-HK based crew on the plane. Typical. When we landed, I made it a point to shake the captain's hand and to extend my support for his actions. He and the cockpit crew appreciated the gesture.
My good deed of the week...
I think that each time I visit the Lion City, I will do ONE touristy thing. On my last trip, I had dinner at Halia in the Singapore Botanical Gardens and then a stroll in the gardens, though not in the same visit.
This visit, myself and a friend took a ride on the Singapore Flyer. It's currently the biggest ferris wheel in the world and is very air conditioned and very smooth. I usually have a problem with heights (that's why I fly a lot!) but it wasn't an issue this time. Because I was enjoying the view AND taking night pix!
I think this is the construction site of the Marina Bay casino...
If you watched the Grand Prix last year, I think you'll recognize these buildings.
The CBD and the Fullerton Hotel.
I'm in Kuala Lumpur right now, relaxing and trying to regroup. This is what I'm trying to figure out right now.
There are two hotels in the KL Sentral, a Hilton and a Le Meridian. The Hilton has a boring lobby and restaurants but awesome rooms with an open bathroom and wood floors. I stayed here last year and blogged it. The Le Meridian has boring smaller rooms, but the lobby and bar is pretty nice, they have a cigar lounge and for US$40, you can purchase access to a lounge that includes free Wi-Fi, free beer, food and beverages and a nice view. The interesting thing is that the Hilton is more expensive for just a room, but if you get a room at the Le Meridian and you purchase lounge access, it's the same price as the Hilton, sans the benefit of the club floor.
Since the two hotels share the same building, they both share the pool and access to KL Sentral, what's the verdict? Here it is: If you're with someone and plan to spend a lot of time in the room, stay at the Hilton. The rooms are bigger and much nicer with flat screen TV, open bathrooms and big wide beds. If you're looking for a nice place to crash and you're not going to spend that much time in the room, stay at the Le Meridian. If you don't buy club level access, it's cheaper and if you do, you can make up the price of the club level add on by drinking lots of beer, having brekkie and happy hour there and drinking lots of coffee. Those things can add up if you purchase them elsewhere and the view can't be beat!
Actually, I'm in the lounge right now, having a lunch of Guinness Foreign Extra and nuts. I'm sure FA would approve...
Last week, I wound up at Tokyo Haneda (HND) Airport for a short hop to Sapporo via New Chitose Airport (CTS) for a few days. Besides reveling at the fact that HND is a MUCH nicer airport than NRT and that their observation deck has a snack bar, I found this travesty at the gates.
Yes, it's THAT jet...the ANA Pokemon Jet.
I shouldn't have said anything because that jet became MY jet for the 1.5 hour flight to CTS. Here's the obligatory close up of one of the most silliest liveries to grace a Boeing 747-400.
It shows that ANA has a sense of fun, since there is one other Pokemon jet in the fleet as well as a flying panda and a couple of Snoopy based jets as well. You want Kitty-Chan? You'll have to fly EVA for that one!
Inside, the head rests were covered by Pokemon covers but otherwise, it was standard ANA in the rest of the cabin. No cabin attendants dressed up as Pikachu. Service was pretty good for a short hop. Apparently, the HND/NRT-CTS route is one of the busiest in the world and the loads are so high that they regularly fly jumbos on this route. They also fly itty bitty CRJs on this route as well, which was my return flight into NRT. There's something not very nice about a plane where you can't even stand up straight in the aisle!
This route is also hella expensive unless you get the mega discount 8 weeks ahead fare and then it's close to 30000 yen. I got a round trip with two weeks advance for 22000 yen and got UA MP EQM for the flights on top of it. How? I purchased the ANA Skypass before I left the US. Info here (why should I type it when I can link it)?
I found a blog with useful tidbits about mainland China and Hong Kong travel.
She also has a handful of entries on how to get from Hong Kong to SZX to take advantage of the MUCH lower flight prices to other parts of the PRC. For some goofy reason, Hong Kong is considered "international" when flying into the PRC. Tickets are hella expensive. However, when you cross the border into Shenzhen and fly out of SZX, flights are considered "domestic" and are at LEAST half the price. Think of it as taking public transit from my house in San Francisco to OAK. About the same amount of time involved.
If you've got some time, best to save some RMB, huh?
This is why!
Generally, it works more often than it doesn't. Also, unlike Dish, I can use my TiVo!
Flying, generally, isn't a completely bad thing, if done properly. One of the things that has to be done "properly" is learning how to pack. Baggage should be light, as well as the non-clothing things that are now travel essentals.
I've been a MacHead for close to two decades now. I'm of the opinion that the MacOS is the best operating system for end user use and general headache avoidance. However, after spending the past couple of years lugging a MacBrickBook around the world, I've come to a realization about what I really use a comp for when I'm traveling.
Email, websurfing, blogging, booking travel, photo dumping (from the camera's memory card) and Skype.
Many of the netbooks out there can do all these things AND are a lot easier to lug around airports and the like. The problem is that the wizards at Infinite Loop refuse to build a netbook. Period. Which is a pain, considering the last true portable Apple made was the 12" aluminum that, if you ignore the warped cases, the G4 that generated enough heat to make shabu shabu and the squishy keyboard, was the perfect size for flashpacking. So, since Apple won't make one, guess it's time to make one myself. Kinda.
I held my nose and ordered a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook. Since it's bad enough to order a Dell Dull, and worse off to have to pay for windoze, I ordered the bare bones stock model with Unbuntu on a 4 GB SSD, 512K RAM, a webcam and bluetooth since it's MUCH cheaper to order the upgrade bits through third party vendors. 32 GB SSD and 2 GB RAM for under US$100.
Now, why have I sullied my credit card to a company that makes crap pee cees that only IT geeks and people that don't know any better worship? Because, they got it right with the Mini 9. It's a good form factor, the screen is not too big or too small and you can actually do real work with it. Did I mention that you can install OSX on it? Yes you can!
Now here's the question. Are these netbooks made of precious metals? Made by hand by skilled artesians? Nope. Then why does it take a MONTH?? I'll update when and if it ever gets here...
Now that I'm used to spending at least 10 hours on a plane again, it's time to plan my return to Asia...
Recent Comments